Level Of Healthy Tension
When you are well and without stress,
your manner is relaxed and physical recreation brings pleasure. You
don't feel guilty at taking time to relax or take exercise. Burdens and
pressures that would cause loss of happiness and health are rejected.
Other-people see you as healthy, adaptable and approachable.
The qualities required for success,
namely rapid and flexible thought, originality, vigor and capacity for
sustained effort, are abundant. Increasing your arousal improves your
performance.
Level Of Acceptable Fatigue
Acceptable fatigue You may feel
reasonable fatigue but don't deny it and take steps to recover as soon
as
possible. Inessential drains on energy can be jettisoned or deferred.
Sleep is adequate, other people see you as healthily tired, but they
are not made anxious about it. The qualities required for success are
still evident.
Exhaustion Level
Exhaustion You may insist that you are
healthy but other people see differently. You see no need for
relaxation, nor to increase fitness. Excessive burdens and pressures
disruptive of health and happiness are accepted as inevitable because
exhaustion reduces the ability to distinguish the essential from the
inessential.
You may engage in fruitless activity
(this often happened on exhausted mothers who take on more and more and
in colleagues in in whom the 'martyr syndrome' is easily recognized by
others). Increasing the arousal only worsens the performance and this
makes for more anxiety and greater arousal.
Others see the symptoms of strain: bad
temper, grumbling, longer hours worked but less achieved. There may be
preoccupation with minor matters while major problems wait to be
solved:
-
Sleep becomes inadequate and mannerisms
may develop which disrupt the peace of mind of others.
-
The qualities for success disappear and
the mind becomes set against change.
-
adaptability is lost.
-
Eating, drinking and smoking may
increase.
-
the appetite is lost and meals are
skipped.
The more seriously exhausted you are the
less likely it is that you will seek medical help. If this stage
continues it leads to ill health and eventually a breakdown in mental
or physical health. Most of us have either experienced these
feelings or watched someone else experience them.
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